Richmond board challengers pick team of players Tigers missed in the draft

THE group challenging Richmond’s board has laid bare the club’s recruiting failures in a team of “could have been Tigers” — but do the names all stack up?

Early picks from the 2007 draft (from left) Jarrad Grant, Trent Cotchin, Matthew Kreuzer, Brad Ebert, Patrick Dangerfield, Chris Masten and Cale Morton.

IF AARON Fiora and Richard Tambling thought they were off the hook, think again.

The poster boys for Richmond’s recruiting failures in the early 2000s are back — not by their own choosing — as part of the campaign to oust the current board led by president Peggy O’Neal.

The “Focus on Footy” challengers have labelled recruiting as one of the key elements of the “continuing cycle of failure” at Punt Rd that has to change.

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“We haven’t been good at recruiting,” group leader Dr Martin Hiscock said on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.

“We just lost three first-round draft picks. Chris Yarran cost us two second-round draft picks.

“And then we had that crazy mature age recruiting plan just to make the finals. And they knew full well that it wouldn’t win them a premiership, but, ‘Oh let’s just do that to appease the members’. That’s not on.”

Page two of the group’s eight-page manifesto features a hypothetical team made of current players Richmond could have selected in the draft but didn’t.

It includes Lance Franklin, famously overlooked in favour of Tambling in 2004, and other stars including Dan Hannebery, Daniel Talia and Patrick Dangerfield.

“Richmond’s Non-Player Team of the Decade” isn’t pretty reading.

The team listed in the Focus On Footy document supplied to the media.

While the role a club board plays in recruiting isn’t clear, the team highlights some clear mistakes.

Patrick Cripps was selected by Carlton at pick 13 in the 2013 draft, one pick after the Tigers took Ben Lennon — who is now looking for a trade.

Dyson Heppell was pick seven in 2010, one pick after Reece Conca went to Richmond. He’s also likely to be at a new club next year.

But some of the selections are a bit more dubious.

Jarryd Roughead is at full-forward, but Richmond took Brett Deledio ahead of him who has turned out to be a reasonable player.

Every club wishes they had Patrick Dangerfield but nine clubs had selections before Adelaide in 2007 including Essendon (David Myers), the Bulldogs (Jarrad Grant) and Melbourne (Cale Morton) who would be kicking themselves more than Richmond, which used pick two on Trent Cotchin.

Cyril Rioli is also included in the Focus on Footy team even though he went in the same draft before the Tigers had another pick.

Richard Tambling was taken at pick four in the 2004 draft.

Reece Conca, another top-10 pick, is looking for a new home. Picture: George Salpigtidis

And would any Richmond fan swap Dustin Martin (pick three in 2009) for Gary Rohan (pick six)?

Fox Footy’s AFL360 host Gerard Whateley described it as “pub talk”.

“That’s how supporters bitch and moan about their team.”

Co-host Mark Robinson said 1980 premiership captain Bruce Monteath bringing up Matthew Pavlich, infamously overlooked in favour of Fiora in 1999, at yesterday’s press conference was ridiculous.

“Every club can talk about their misses,” Robinson said.

“When they brought up Aaron Fiora ahead of Matthew Pavlich, I thought ‘you don’t have to go there’. That’s 16 years ago.”

Originally published as Richmond board challengers pick team of players Tigers missed in the draft